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Boxfishes are easily recognized by their rigid external armour composed of sutured bony plates. Their fins are much reduced and they are usually slow swimmers, but capable of short rapid bursts. They also have no pelvic fins and fins without spines.

When feeding, boxfishes sometimes squirt a jet of water into the sand to uncover small plants and invertebrates. The diet includes tunicates, sponges, soft corals, crustaceans, worms, and algae. Boxfishes have a harem social structure with 3-4 females per male. Spawning occurs in pairs after dusk. Pelagic eggs are released and fertilized after the pair rises well off the bottom and hover in place for several seconds. Boxfishes produce a toxic slime that can kill other fishes or themselves in a confined space such as an aquarium.

About 33 species and 14 genera of boxfishes are known worldwide. Two wide ranging Indo-Pacific species are encountered in our area, including one on reefs and another that appears here as pelagic young, usually out at sea.

Love, M.S., Mecklenburg, C.W., Mecklenburg, T.A., Thorsteinson, L.K., 2005., es of the West Coast and Alaska: a checklist of North Pacific and Artic Ocena species from Baja California to the Alaska-Yukon border., U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, 288pp.